Published:

Fri,Feb 10th 2012 @ 5:39 pm ESTbyRoy Beck

NumbersUSA's Top 10 Immigration-Reduction Grades for 2011 belong to U.S. Representatives whose efforts would have shone in any Congress. But they were particularly stellar in the fiasco that was the first session of the 112th Congress.

When thinking about the new Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives and the dreams that so many Americans had of change in our anti-U.S.-worker immigration policies, the word "carrion" comes to mind. My dictionary simply defines carrion as "the putrefying flesh of a carcass." CARRION would have been just as helpful to unemployed Americans on immigration policy as was the House Republican leadership in 2011. And carrion is pretty much the current shape of how the Republican leadership has left legislation that would stop illegal aliens from stealing jobs from Americans and that would reduce the massive annual import of new foreign workers while 20 million Americans can't find a full-time job.

In the midst of all that roadkill, the Top 10 pictured here did their best to breathe life into the legislative body in 2011

Click on their names to look at all the actions they found to do while the House Republican leadership pretended that immigration problems don't exist. They all earned an A+ with nearly identical percentage scores.

Most of the Top 10 were 5-for-5ers, co-sponsoring legislation in all five major areas of needed immigration reform: (1) mandatory E-Verify, (2) support for local law enforcement, (3) ending birthright citizenship for illegal aliens, (4) ending Chain Migration, (5) ending the Visa Lottery. Most of these Top 10 were the lead sponsors of major bills and used their committee positions to advance the cause of immigration reduction for the sake of America's unemployed.

Look at the records of these Top 10 and start to work turning your own U.S. Representative into a champion for America's unemployed workers and their families.

Go to your customized Action Board and send the faxes that are waiting there for you. Make the phone calls on your Board.

Only by providing dozens more colleagues to these Top 10 will we have a chance to change the House Republican leadership to start allowing votes on immigration bills. Click here to find your own Representative's grade card.

I will make one special Honorable Mention of Lamar Smith of San Antonio, Texas, who missed the Top 10 by one percentage point but who without a doubt provided the most active leadership in advancing our cause through committee work and the news media during 2011.

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NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation provides a civil forum for Americans of all political and ethnic backgrounds to focus on a single issue, the numerical level of U.S. immigration. We educate opinion leaders, policymakers and the public on immigration legislation, policies and their consequences. We favor reductions in immigration numbers toward traditional levels that would allow present and future generations of Americans to enjoy a stabilizing U.S. population and a high degree of individual liberty, mobility, environmental quality, worker fairness and fiscal responsibility.

Those who need to refer to NumbersUSA with a short, descriptive modifier should call it an “immigration-reduction organization.”